Facebook Nears A Billion Members: Fun Facts

Facebook revealed on Monday that it is just 99 million users shy of hitting the one-billion-users mark, which means about one seventh of the world’s population may soon be sharing photos, status updates, and pokes via the social network. The news comes as the company amended its paperwork on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission as part of Facebook’s march towards its initial public offering.

Facebook now has 901 million monthly active users, according to the company and, every day, those legions of users are uploading 300 million photos and making 3.2 billion likes and comments online. The Facebook nation also accounts for 125 billion online friendships, and is less than half a million people shy of the population of China, Earth’s most populous country.

Chinese and Facebookian currencies aren’t that far apart when converted to American greenbacks either. The Chinese Yuan is currently worth about $0.16, while one Facebook credit will set you back ten cents.

Here are a few more comparisons between Facebook’s gigantic user base and the rest of the world.

McDonald’s Is no Facebook

McDonald’s may lay claim to having served billion of customers, but the global hamburger chain opens its doors and drive-thru windows to just under 68 million people on a daily basis. Facebook claims a daily user base nearly eight times that size at 526 million.

The Blue Continent

Once Facebook hits the one billion mark, it will have a user base almost equal to the population of the entire continent of Africa. Current estimates put the number of people in Africa at 1.03 billion.

Subscriber Base

There are almost as many Facebook users as there are cellphone subscribers in China. China revealed it was closing in on 900 million mobile phone subscribers last April and has since surpassed that number.

Buggy

Facebook’s current user population is equal to the total number of Internet Explorer users hit by a Windows bug in early 2011 that put users at risk of being hacked, according to Fox News. The flaw has since been fixed.

Linguistic Under-Achiever

Facebook may be closing in on one billion monthly users and available in almost every country on the planet, but the social network is a lightweight when it comes to languages. Facebook is available in over 70 tongues, including Esperanto, Latin, Leetspeak, and Pirate. The tiny country of Papua New Guinea, however, has a population of more than 6 million with over 860 indigenous languages, according to the CIA World Factbook. Well, as they say on Facebook: Vos potest non vincere omnes (You can’t win them all).

A recent report by Nielsen said the average Facebook user in the U.S. spends nearly 7 hours a month on the social network. Interestingly, that’s about the same amount of time it takes to understand Facebook’s privacy settings.

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